


Of Stars and Other Distant Hopes

by azcendio



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AU, Boxing, Child Abandonment, Coming of Age, F/M, Foster Care AU, High School, Modern AU, Past Abuse, Touch-Starved, streetfighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-24 01:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azcendio/pseuds/azcendio
Summary: Rey lives in a cycle: of family, of love, of abandonment, of a new family, a new love...  And on it goes.  When her social worker, Mrs. Organa, brings her to a new group home, where misfit teens - Finn and Poe, the Tico sisters, and a nameless runaway- are watched over by Luke the caregiver, she knows how the sequence will go.  She always does.  Her only hope is soon her parents will come for her, like they promised so many years ago.  Except... cycles are meant to be broken and new hopes to be born.





	1. Polaris

**Author's Note:**

> this story has been stuck in my head for a good minute, so here it is! My first reylo fic. Please leave comments, as I'd love to hear what you think since it is a first for me! Enjoy :)

A girl sits on the edge of a spinning world, feet hung over a still, black void.  There’s a humming violence hidden all around and below, and it stirs her, jolts her though she pretends not to feel it.  She digs her fingers into the thin cushion of her seat, makes white-knuckled fists, and fights to stay absolutely, perfectly still.  

The girl sits in a car, her face stoically turned towards the window, lit eyes flashing over every detail she sees, searching.  But the scenery is a blur; street signs impossible to hold onto and every face a stranger’s outline.  Nothing is solid, not even the seat beneath her.  She’s flying at hyperspeed through space, with each passing house a distant star marking just how far away home is- how impossible it is to map her way back.

Reflected in all that space is a kind woman’s face, eyes flickering back to the girl, the passenger; apprehension darkens an otherwise hopeful gaze.  The woman’s lips lift in a smile, and move.  But, whatever message those lips are meant to send are lost in the space between the driver and passenger.  There is no sound where she is.

“Rey?”

And just like that, it all slams down on her; the scenery comes to a halt, and it’s all cold, dense air and violent screaming.  The dog across the street sounds like it’s dying to break loose of its leash, the sprinklers next door throttle water with a vulgar splash on Rey’s window, and she can hear the cool breeze pushing its way into her skull.  The words left floating from the driver’s seat crash into her ears-

“It’s a group home, and the kids here are around your age.  I think you’ll really like it.”

Gravity pulls down then.  The seat-belt presses, hard and numbing, against Rey’s chest, and everything is brutally solid and real.  They’ve landed.  And no matter how many times they do it, she isn’t used to the nausea that follows.  

Rey turns her head away from the view and sees the car door is wide open.  She can hear herself breathing, like she’s been holding it in since take off, and it’s all a little too heavy for someone who’s perfectly okay with this.  She’s okay with this.  With this new world, away.  Away-

“Are you alright?”

Why wouldn’t she be?

After an agonizing moment of confusion over whether or not her fingers are working, she pushes down on the buckle and ejects herself from the car.

“Rey, we’ve talked about communicati-”

“I’m fine, Mrs. Organa!” Rey blurts out cheerily as she shuts the car door; a little too eagerly.  She’s smiling to smother the nerves, to smother her doubts once again.   _This is all just temporary_ , Rey reminds herself.  This is the last time she’ll have to land on foreign soil.  She knows this.

But still…

“You’ll tell my parents the new address, right?  There’s been so many- they’ll get so confused,” Rey rants, unaware of just how desperate she sounds.  Her eyes are wide and expecting, her smile still as innocent and naive as the day she first froze it in place nine years ago.

Nine years of trying to make constellations out of street signs, of taking off and landing in unknown worlds she had no place in, of Mrs. Organa playing guide to Rey’s drift through space.  Nine years of counting days and lightyears, knowing her parents would wait and go the distance.  They had to.

“They’ll come, if they know where to find me.”

Through the rose-colored haze, Rey can make out a soft sadness in Mrs. Organa’s expression.  At every end or beginning of yet another “fresh start”, Mrs. Organa always offers Rey the same wise, aged face and kindness.  And the same, balanced weight of sadness at the edges of her smile.  The blame usually falls on tired wrinkles, but this time, this one time, Rey can’t manage it.  The sadness is doubled, hanging off the lips and eyes.

The instinct to run, to hide, storms sickeningly in Rey’s stomach.  Years ago, she would’ve immediately acted on the urge, but they’re past that now.  For now.

“You’ll tell them, right?” Rey presses, and Mrs. Organa’s eyes flicker up to the house ahead of them.  She seems nervous for some reason, and Rey’s energy feeds off it, threatens to become catatonic.

A door creaks open behind Rey, and Mrs. Organa’s mouth frees a sigh; it sounds withered by time, lightened only by the dimmest sense of hope.  Slowly, she puts a hand on Rey’s head, sensing the chaos there and wanting so badly to calm it; this too feels old and hopeful, like she’s held someone like this before, here before.  And before Rey can refuse, she’s pulled into a fearsome embrace.  It only takes a moment before her arms are around her mentor, squeezing, afraid to let go again.

Something is said, warm and sweet, and muffled in her hair.  Rey strains to hear anything outside of their shared breathing.  What she does catch is useless to her: “- find you.”

She pulls away from her social worker, a puzzled and persistent look on her face, ready to make Mrs. Organa repeat herself-

“Leiah, would you get in here already? I’m freezing!” someone calls from behind, from the open doorway only Mrs. Organa can see.  Rey refuses to turn around, and watches instead as her mentor’s face transforms; she looks younger than when Rey first met her, sadness momentarily triumphed over by love.

Hands grip onto Rey’s shoulders, firmer than usual.  They turn her and point her in the direction of the doorway.  There’s a man standing there, the lines on his face matching Mrs. Organa’s perfectly, and Rey gets a sense that this placement is different than the ones before.  Much different.

When the hands on her shoulders nudge her forward, Rey digs her heels into the pavement.  She feels drawn to the humored smile, the kindred eyes at the threshold, and knows how this all ends.  She doesn’t want to do this again.  She doesn’t want attachments, especially not now, not when it’s almost, _finally_ , over.

“Rey, please,” Mrs. Organa’s voice blankets her, as it always does, in comfort.  Rey’s reminded this is the only attachment she’s yet to lose, and soon even that will be gone.  “I promise, it’s the last landing.”

“No more moving?  This is the place I’ll stay at until my parents come?” Rey pushes the matter again, yet she can’t look away from that doorway, and that man.  “Promise?”

“I promise.”

Two words, two hands, a single push.  In that one moment, Rey is detached and drifting again, through a doorway and into a strange new life full of odds and ends and sounds she can never quite get used to; the kitchen is in the complete opposite direction from the last house, stairs look a little taller, new levels to the floor she’ll trip over constantly, and the air is warmer and smells like toast (an improvement since the last place smelled always of microwaved fish).  The man- the caregiver- is different, too.  He’s shorter than the last one, and his voice deeper.  She has a hard time tuning him out.  She _always_ does, but this time she gives into listening faster than usual.  

There’s just something about his demeanor, something homey and needed.

“-are split, so no funny business.  Always knock before opening bedroom or bathroom doors to spare everyone the drama.  We’ve all seen things we can’t unsee, let’s not add to it by forgetting the simple rule of ‘knock. first,’ got it?”

The something is: he doesn’t sugarcoat anything.  He doesn’t try to coddle her, as though this is her first and only rodeo.  He isn’t to be her savior, or she his kid to save.  He’s a roof over her head, until she finds home again.  

Rey grins and nods happily.  “Got it, sir.”

“You weren’t listening at all, were you?” The caregiver accuses, glaring and gruff.  But, through the mask of mustache and beard, Rey spots a hidden grin.  “Kid, never call me sir.  It’s Luke.”

Not sir. _Luke._

A foreboding twist in the stomach warns Rey she’s falling into her own trap again, but she can’t stop feeding on what’s luring her there: a bond.  She’s starved, and it’s instinct that makes her want more, and what she gets has her smile growing, and growing.  It contradicts her resolve to wait for the right and only offer of sustenance.

She tries to stifle the grin as Luke rolls out the ground house rules.  “If someone’s name is clearly screaming at you in marker, don’t eat whatever food you’re tempted to eat.  Everything else in the fridge is open season, but always mark what’s low on the list so, again, we spare the drama.  We have Movie Mondays to soothe over the pain of school, but only after everyone has finished their homework.  If you’re into video games, you can glare at Poe for breaking the console.”

This, thankfully, helps extinguish her smile.  “Who’s Poe?”

“I am!”

From a heap of leaking bean bags in the living room, a waving hand and curls shoot up.  Soon, a face emerges, open and grinning.  “Poe Dameron, sixteen, orphan!”

“Don’t forget: loser!” Another voice chimes in eagerly despite Rey’s bewilderment over the turn of events, and there’s a chorus of laughter as Poe’s cheeriness falters.  He glances back, almost as confused as Rey.  They both watch as another boy, grinning victoriously, flutters a fan of cards.  “Your goldfish are mine,” the boy clarifies giddily.

“ _What?!_ ”

Distressed, Poe Dameron (sixteen, orphan), completely forgets the new recruit and flails over an unseen pile of poker goldfish.  Rey figures this is _the_ moment to disengage but, when she turns back to Luke, the man is a phantom.  

Or rather, he’s completely abandoned her; already, the act fills her with panic.  After a moment of pathetic searching, Rey spots him at the doorway where Mrs. Organa has stood this entire time.  It’s then Rey notices the sadness hasn’t left her eyes or lips, even as she talks to her friend.  Her eyes are locked ahead, down the hallway just beside the stairs- expectantly, longingly.  Rey’s curiosity and concern gets the best of her, and she can feel her toes digging into the carpet as she leans forward, trying to hear what’s being said in obviously personal and grave whispers.

“Hey!  New girl!”  Poe, sixteen, orphan, nearly scares the daylights out of her.  Thankfully, neither Luke nor Mrs. Organa see Rey jump out of her own skin.  Poe, and the other teen eyeballs watching her, don’t seem to care.  “Join us!”

She is incapable of saying no to the array of glowing crescent smiles, floating there over the oasis of bean bags.  As she walks over to the light, Mrs. Organa’s words taunt her.  Of course she’s right, of course Rey’s bound to like the kids here.  That’s the problem.

Rey tries her best to sit rigidly across from the others, separating herself from their comfort, resisting their tidal pull.  Unfortunately, her seat is a bean bag, and those just don’t do ‘rigid’.  She’s in the middle of sinking, and trying not to sink, when Poe yanks at her attention.

“So!  Like I was saying- I’m Poe: sixteen, orphan,” he says it so matter-of-factly, Rey is baffled as to whether to apologize or... nod.  So, she just sits there like a lame duck.  Poe jerks a thumb to the side, to the boy sitting nearest to her, who is now holding a treasure trove of snacks.  “This here is Finn: fifteen, stealer of goldfish and other goods.”

She shouldn’t want to hear these names, ages, or strange and endearing titles, and she shouldn’t feel the muscles in her face lift like goofy clouds- but she does.  Especially when the token robber makes the most animated, incredulous face at Poe.  She definitely shouldn’t want to poke his cheeks.  Or see how well she could hide her fingers in the trenches of his laugh lines.

“I think we can introduce ourselves!”  He snorts.  Finn turns his focus to Rey, and his expression is the worst mix of endearing and accepting; she’s finding it harder and harder not to sink back into the cushions of this new life.   _Keep it together_ , she reminds herself, _you’ve only been here a few minutes._

“My name _is_ Finn.  I _am_ fifteen, but I _didn’t_ steal anything!  I won it- fair and square.”

Poe is still glaring but there’s a softness to his eyes and a comradery, even as he says: “Cheater _and_ a liar.”

The bean bag is leaking under Rey, and she’s sinking further in, and she’s okay with this.

“I’m Rose Tico,” a new voice pops up from behind Finn.  It comes from the human embodiment of sunshine.  From beside her rises another radiant smile, revealing a binary system.  “And I’m Paige.  We’re sisters.”

“And you?”  It’s Finn, and Rey wonders if he ever stops smiling or if this is just for her.  She wouldn’t mind either way.  And either way, it’s contagious.  She’s smiling right back.

“I’m Rey.”  It’s just her name, but it feels like a signature at the end of a contract she hasn’t fully read.  And she definitely can’t commit to it.  

Afraid personal questions are part of the deal, she clears her throat and beats them to the punch.  “So, is everyone here an orphan?”

It might not have been the best line to lead with.  She inwardly flinches.  Poe cracks with laughter.

“Just me,” he states as casually as before.  “Parents died in a plane crash when I was young.  Lived with my grandparents, but they died a few years ago and now I’m here.  Full tragic backstory unlocked!  Though, Paige and Rose’s story trumps mine by a mile.”  He leans in with a spark in his eyes, and the others are leaning back, and Rey gets the sense they’ve all been through this before.  “Get this: their aunt, who’s been taking care of them, is in the hospital.   _Why_ was she taking care of them?  Because their mom and dad are journalists who are currently _imprisoned in another country_.”  He takes a pause to gauge Rey’s reaction.  He looks so amazed by the story that she feels bad if she doesn’t, so she widens her eyes and nods a little too broadly.  

“Woah,” she says, figures it’s a safe alternative to ‘cool’ and ‘that really, _really_ sucks’.  It seems adequate enough for Poe, who chills out on his bean bag and then gives a cool nod in Finn’s direction.  

“Oh, and my boy here?  His family couldn’t afford his eating habit.”

“ _Seriously_?” Finn howls.

Through the resulting rain of goldfish crackers, Poe is still grinning and listing off the collection of foster kids housed here.  “We also have a runaway, but he really doesn’t count-”

Rey catches the end of someone groaning: Rose.  Who is now frowning, deeply.  “You shouldn’t talk about people behind their backs, Poe-”

“What?” He exclaims, defensive.  He picks off a goldfish that lands on his shoulder and eats it.  “Like he doesn’t?”

As Poe picks up another goldfish from the ground, the rain stops; Finn has finally realized he’s giving Poe exactly what he wants.  Rey’s convinced, though, that his grimace has nothing to do with the goldfish casualties.

“He doesn’t talk to people at all,” Finn mutters, “so probably not.”

“She should know, if she’s going to stay here-”

“I’m not!” Rey hastily cuts in.  Then everyone’s eyes are on her, and she realizes how panicked she sounded, how tense the muscles in her back are.  She tries to mellow out, and attempts a nonchalant shrug.  Her bones groan awkwardly.  “I’m not staying here for long.  Just a little while.  So, I don’t really need to know.”

“Oh.”  Finn sounds disappointed.  Looks it, too.  “Is this an emergency placement?”

“No,” she replies confidently, chest overfilled with the knowledge that: “I’m going home soon.”

“Really?”  Poe sounds skeptical.  Looks it, too.  Finn jabs him in the arm.

“Yes, really.”  She focuses on sounding and looking the part: perfectly positive.  “This is just temporary, until my sixteenth birthday.”

“Did your sosh say that?” Poe continues to prod, even as Finn’s elbow prods deep between his ribs.

“My what?”

“Your social worker.”

This doesn’t ease the confusion, or the knotting in her stomach.  “Yeah,” she answers, but it ends up sounding like a question.  The air around the word becomes stagnant, and there’s a smell she’s familiar with but refuses to name.

“My first sosh said that, too,” Finn admits when Poe and the others stay decidedly quiet.  “At the beginning.  The second one never did.  And now I’m officially up for adoption.”

And the air is back to being a heavy weight, stuck to the back of her throat and refusing to go down- a needed reminder that this isn’t her air, this isn’t her world.  She’ll never truly adapt, only ever try to survive here.  She needs to go _home_.

Perhaps Finn knows the panic, can hear the familiar heaving of her lungs and heart - or maybe she’s just embarrassingly easy to read.  Either way, he leans forward and puts a hand on hers.  She stiffens at the touch, her nerves flashing in warning behind her eyelids: _pull away, pull away!_  But he’s kind and warm, and his softness feels like a part of a memory, of a family.  More reason to pull away, more reason to scream _let go_ , but she doesn’t.  

“Don’t wait too long for people who aren’t here,” he says.  “Enjoy who you’re with, where you are... at least for the little while.”

Kindness was always a weakness for her.  It clutches onto her, and she holds on, both impossible to shake off.  Compulsively Rey nods and smiles, and pretends to completely agree.  Except, more impossible to shake off is that lump still stuck in her throat, choking her.  The lump isn’t new, Finn’s advice isn’t new, and the feeling of longing in her heart is as old as the universe itself.  It’s like this every time, and Rey’s partly convinced she’s trapped in a cruel, looping wormhole; she finally thinks she’s speeding ahead to a different end, only to return to the same point in time again and again, and again in a never-ending cycle.  To the beginning, to the moment when she steps into a house wanting to make it home.  It is a moment that exists in the same moment it doesn’t, like a dead star whose lingering light she foolishly wishes upon every night.  She knows it's dead, all probability points to it, but she loves it all the same.

She loves them, these kids who are strangers made family by circumstance.  Rey loves them already, and already she knows they’ll inevitably abandon her.  And so the loop goes.

Her chest clenches at what always comes next in the sequence: the first of the leaving.

A comforting, apologizing warmth hugs Rey’s right shoulder: Mrs. Organa’s hand.  She doesn’t bother to look, she just knows.

Poe, on the other hand, leaps from his seat.  “Leiah!”

“Poe,” Mrs. Organa laughs from behind Rey as Poe dives in for an awkwardly bent hug.  “Have any uprisings planned for this week?” She asks and, without the guise of laughter, Rey can hear a tightness to her voice.  Finally, concern wins over and Rey looks back.  There’s a redness at the edges of her mentor’s eyes, and a stray lash on her cheek.  

“ _Actually_ -”

Mrs. Organa’s free hand lifts into the air, pausing what is bound to be a lengthy spiel.  “Probably best if you don’t tell me,” she says, grinning.  Composed.  So much so that Rey begins to doubt her suspicions.  

Then there’s a backpack placed onto her lap; it’s hollowly light, in perfect condition, and yet another reminder of the loop Rey’s stuck in.  “Almost forgot your bag, Rey,” it’s not really hers, but she clings to it and nods all the same, readies her goodbye smile, because:  “I have to leave now.”

The lump at the back of Rey’s throat dissolves into a horrific acid.  As if moving would keep it from burning her alive, she bolts up and fiercely embraces Mrs. Organa, _Leiah_ , her one constant in all this.  Her north star.  Constantly glowing, guiding.  Leaving.

This time, more than all the other times before, Rey wishes with all her might Leiah won’t go.  

The arms that hold her together leave.

The rest is muscle memory: the goodbye, the continued smile, the sitting down.  But Rey’s muscles are tired.  When she’s seated back on the bean bag, each one of those muscles lets go.

“So,” Poe starts when the coast is clear.  “Leiah is your social worker?”

Rey swallows what’s left of the acid, and chooses to nod; she’s not quite sure she can talk just yet.

Obviously, she chose wrong.  Poe’s eyes blow up and he’s got his hands up in disbelief, looking at the others.  They look right back at him, deadpan.  “Oh, _come on_ , she HAS to know now!”

“ _POE._ ” Straight from deadpan to yelling.  

“He’s just talking all the talk because he doesn’t want the next round to start,” Finn accuses with a suspicious glare.  “He knows he’s about to get owned, _again_.”

In one swift, offended gawk, whatever determination Poe had to expose house secrets to Rey is completely transferred to a much more immediate, important cause.  He jabs a finger into Finn’s shoulder, signaling the end of the gossiping.  Like that, all aspects of Leiah or Rey’s situation are wiped from the forefront, much to her relief.  “If this were Battlefront, you’d be crying right now.”

“But it’s not, because someone just had to go and _break the console_.”

“How was I supposed to know kicking it would break it?!”

“Wanna join, Rey?” Rose’s voice blooms gentle under the siege of taunts.  She’s leaning back, behind the flailing hands and cards, and Rey eagerly leans back to join her.  “I’ll loan you a pack of m&ms for chips.”

“I can spare some sour patch kids, too, if you want to play,” chimes in Paige, just as calmly.

Rey has no idea what’s going on, or why these teens play poker games with candies, or how there can be outrage and laughter and soothing undertones of conversation all at the same time.  It’s chaos, and distracting, and it’s working magic on her spirit.  All that chaotic energy in the air, lively and happy, it hums its way right into her bones, rubbing sore muscles.  No doubt there’s still acid in her throat, still an ache she fears naming, but it feels less threatening surrounded by soft lighting and smiles.  Here, in this moment, as she’d done so many moments before, she can distract herself, _convince_ herself she can do this- _just for the little while._

“Yeah, I’d love to.”

 

* * *

 

The little while lasts for hours, as it always does, until night falls.  This is when the second leaving comes.  Rey’s eyes are open to witness it, watching the moonlight stretch long across sleeping faces.  The faces are of Rose and Paige, curled up at either side of her.  The three of them are strewn upon mattresses playfully dropped from bunk beds and put together on the floor for Rey’s first, impromptu, slumber party.  It was a tame one, with hair braiding and light chatter about things that had nothing to do with family or homes.  They’d made her feel safe on her first night, done their best to make her comfortable, and fallen asleep snug around her.  For a little while, Rey had slept, too.  But she’s awake at the stroke of midnight, sleep escaping as another day leaves her in the dark.

The first feeling she always gets at this moment in the sequence is of mattress springs pushing against her spine.  No matter the place, no matter the padding or lack thereof, it’s always the same sensation of discomfort.   _I’m not used to you_ , the mattress complains with each jab.   _I’m not used to you either,_ she grumbles back as she wiggles, adjusts, tries to make this bed hers.  Though, it’s all in vain anyway.  She’s never lain in one mattress long enough to make an indent.

Rather than lie in this recurring conclusion, Rey slips away and tiptoes to the window.  Beneath it is the backpack given to her so many years ago, when she first started in the system.  It’s a plain grey color, practical and durable, and containing the few things Rey occasionally call hers.  She opens the bag and pulls out one pair of jeans, three shirts, and a couple of underclothes, lays them down on the floor.  They’re a small mix of borrowed and donated, none are really her style- and none of them are what she’s looking for.  At the bottom of the bag, her fingers curl around something smooth and substantial.  Something she’s had since before this set of clothes or this backpack.  It’s something that helps her keep track of the days she’s lost.  It marks the very first day of the cycle.

_“Just for a little while,” Leiah is saying from somewhere behind Rey.  Leiah.  Mrs. Organa.  Rey isn’t quite sure which name to use, or why she has to use it at all, so she stays quiet and plays in the front yard.  It’s evening, and the sky is darkening, and Rey’s eyes are drawn to the one star she can see, just above the rooftop.  Vaguely, she remembers her teacher talking about the north star, how it always points the way home, and she decides that’s the one she’s saying hello to.  As long as she can see it, she knows how to get back to her parents._

_She starts to walk towards it._

_The light of the star, and the setting sun, catch something from within the grass and make it sparkle.  Out of the corner of her eye, Rey sees it.  A fallen star, she thinks to herself giddily when she spots it, and makes a run, a dive for it.  Her small hand gets lost easily in the tall, unmowed grass, and she feels like she’s swimming to the bottom of an ocean in search of lost treasure.  Treasure she finds, and grabs excitedly in her small hand.  It’s heavy and smooth as a pearl, and Rey always knew that’s what stars felt like._

_Imagine her bewilderment and disappointment when she opens her fist to find a short, tarnished chain._

_“I know we can’t keep her.  She just needs a quiet place to stay for the night, Han.”_

_Rey pokes the chain and pulls it up to inspect it: the evening makes it a dark brown, and there are dirty cubes at the end of each line.  She rubs at it to remove the thin layer of grime, and just like that it eagerly shines for her- despite the dim lighting.  Her lapse of disappointment is quickly chased down by fascination.  Even if it’s not a star, she decides it’s still quite beautiful.  She decides to keep it.  It’ll keep her company on her walk home._

_Someone sighs, deep and long.  Rey’s eyes are drawn back to the porch, where Leiah stands talking to a tall man leaning in the doorway.  He’s scruffy, and tries to smile when his eyes catch Rey watching him.  She likes him, but gets a feeling he doesn’t like her, there in his lawn.  “I know, I know, but you promised not to bring your work home.  For him.  It hasn’t been a good day, and this isn’t going to help.”_

_“Maybe it won’t, or maybe it will...”_

_Rey clutches the chain tightly in her fist and stands up, decides if he doesn’t like her on his lawn then she’ll just have to leave.  Her eyes roam up to the sky again, swiftly getting darker and darker and revealing more twinkling stars that all look the same- and she panics.  Where’s the north star?  It had been right there, right above the roof-_

_Another light shines in her eye, this time glowing from inside the house.  By the time she turns to catch it, a heavy curtain falls, blocks all light from coming in or going out.  She wonders if the north star is hiding from her there and, if it is, why it wears the face of a small boy._

_She races up to the porch, suddenly very eager to go inside whether the adult strangers want her to or not.  And she catches the tail end of an important conversation, one that she’ll hold onto as tightly as she holds the chain in her hand._

_“They’ll have her when she’s sixteen, when-”_

_The man in the doorway, his eyes widen at the sight of Rey, just behind Leiah.  He clears his throat and the conversation is immediately cut.  Leiah turns back, looking horrified, though Rey is beaming brighter than any star in the sky._

_“Are you talking about my mommy and daddy?”_

_“Hey, kid, how about we go inside, hmm?  It’s getting late, and you should get some sleep.  Tomorrow’s going to be a big day,” the man says with a smile, and it looks more forced than the one before.  Rey doesn’t care, though, and nods, remembering the hidden star she’s trying to catch.  Han puts a hand on her shoulder, and she lets him, and beams as they guide her over the threshold and close the door.  It’s the first of many thresholds she’ll cross, and it was all to find the north star that would lead her back home._

_She doesn’t find it.  Not then._

And not now.  It’s day three thousand, two hundred, and ninety-five.  She counts back from this day as her thumb strokes the chain linked as a bracelet around her wrist; it moves backwards with each day she retraces to the beginning, around and around, as she lies on the floor by the window.  Usually that helps her to fall asleep even in the strangest, most uncomfortable of houses.  But only if she can find the north star in the sky.  By day three thousand, two hundred, and ninety-five, Rey knows exactly which star she’s looking for and where it should be.  But Polaris is nowhere in sight.  She’s in the wrong place.

Everything feels _off,_ from her count to the tilt of the room.  Restless, Rey clenches her fists, gets up and moves again, away from the window and out of the room and down the stairs.  She stops at the front door, remembers herself just in the moment when her hand reaches for the doorknob.  Some foster homes set up alarms, especially group homes.  And for what was she about to set it off?  She wasn’t running away, not this time at least.  Rey just wanted to go outside, to see the sky, Polaris, and feel the ground calm beneath her.  Was it worth it, then, to be impulsive and possibly wake the entire house for a midnight stroll?  

Rey can easily imagine the look of disappointment in Luke’s face, in the others.  Her hand falls back to her side.  But she doesn’t return to her room.

Her eyes turn to that hallway beside the stairs.  There are three doors, closed.  There has to be at least one window, one chance at finding her star.

She tries not to run, or breathe too heavily, as she goes down the hall and opens doors.  The first is to the laundry room, pitch-black and windowless, and the second is to a garage.  She lingers there for a moment, eyeing with intrigue the mess of tools and the covered mass at the center of it all.  Just begging to be unmasked and salvaged.   _Later,_ she promises herself before closing the door.

Her final hope is at the end of the hallway.  It’s ridiculous how her stomach flips and her mind spins as she approaches.  It’s just a star, _it’s just a star_ , but it’s not.  It’s part of the cycle, to find that star in the sky on that first night.  It’s part of the myth, that if she knows where it is she can follow it right home.  Even if home is an abstract, a collection of scavenged memories poorly stitched together.  Memories she can’t even really remember if she’s not sleeping beneath that star.

Rey opens the door.  The room is obscured in shadow.  Thin streaks of blue light line the floor.  There is a window, heavily draped.  Everything else is black background as she flings herself at the window and hastily peels off the curtains.

After a frantic, painful _second_ of searching, Rey finds her solace.  There it is, much farther left than she expected it to be, but there it is: her star.  It’s not the brightest in the sky, nor the most interesting, but it’s constant.  It’s her constant.  Her eyes lock onto it, forehead pressed to the cool glass.  Gradually, the spinning of her world eases.  The nausea she’s felt since first landing here settles.  Exhaustion loosens her muscles, and she knows she can sleep now.  She wants to, but she doesn’t want this room to do it.  It’s childish, like keeping a night-light or a teddy bear, her need for this star to sleep.  But she needs it all the same.

It’s then that the room finally comes to the foreground, as a prospect for slumber.  It looks like a storage room, where the old and replaced go to collect dust.  Yet, somehow everything is immaculately clean.  A desk next to the window is bare, but shows no signs of dirt or age. There’s a three-tiered shelf on the wall where worn books lean on each other for support- an array of textbooks and novels and other odds and ends, and still no dust; Rey lingers here, traces the names of familiar stories she’s never been able to finish.  Maybe now she can.

Then she spies an abandoned futon in the corner.  Just opposite the window.

Rey moves towards it, naturally bumps into an unseen, small table, and cringes when a clatter of little metal things cascade onto the ground.  Praying the walls are thick and no one heard, she bends down and collects what she now sees are nuts and bolts and a range of gears.  

“Nice,” Rey hums.  

Here’s the mess she expects, delights in.  As she sorts the pieces and places them back on the table, curiosity continues to get the best of her; sleep is no longer at the center of her thoughts.  Instead, she sits on the mattress and toys with the gears, tries to make sense of what they’re all for (they’re too big and various to be parts of a clock, but too small to be for a car).  She tries to put them together, to solve the puzzle.  In the midst of getting the hang of it, whatever _it_ was, Rey’s attention once again boomerangs like that of a child’s.  

Her eyes, alight, are drawn to shadow.  There in the dark, discarded beside a fortress of cardboard boxes, laying in a heap, are a pair of black boxing gloves.  If there used to be a punching bag, it’s no longer around.  Still, Rey gets up from the futon and walks over, picks them up.  Like everything else in the room, the gloves are faded, worn out.  Comforting.

They’re also a little dusty.

She puts them on.

The gloves fit snugly, the inside cushion warm and happily hugging around her hands.  They feel right, old as they are.  Up close she can see the undersides are blue- or were.  The black and blue leather skin is faded and cracked, the deep lines telling stories of sweat and conflict.  Just like stars aren’t just stars, these aren’t just a pair of old tattered gloves.  She feels more than herself, wearing them.  Her memory sprints down old boxing matches she’d seen once or twice on the television, a catalog of school fights she’d watch from afar, and imagines what kind of person wore these gloves.  Were they the kind that drew blood, or expelled inner demons?

Rey raises them up to eye level, nearly touching her nose, inspecting them for any tells of their past.  She knows she looks ridiculous like this, posed ready for an imaginary fight, and laughs quietly to herself before slowly, slowly, extending out her right arm.  Her gloved fist taps against a box, lightly.  Giggling, she pulls back and extends her other arm.  Another, less light, less gentle tap to the tower.  Pathetic as the hit is, the boxes move from impact, just a little, just enough to have her ducking back, a rush of adrenaline diving down Rey’s nerve ends.  It shoots up her spine, giving her a heady high.  

Her grin is wide, and her stance strong as she re-enacts what she thinks are boxing moves in the air.  She’s only ever watched, and her arms are string with no real aim.  But in her head, she’s in a ring, her opponent a faceless silhouette, her hits swift and effortless.  A jab, a bob, and a weave, and a hook, a slip, and an uppercut.  Again, and again, with a smile on her face and a lightness to her step, friends and family cheering her name, nemesis heaving and ready to surrender.  She turns to serve the final blow-

The air is knocked out of her.

Standing at the door is a _real_ silhouette, an expressionless skull where a human face should be.  It’s massive, this thing - _person_ , she knows it has to be but it’s spanning from one side of the door to the other, a vast darkness that eclipses every shadow in the room.  A nemesis worth battling, yet Rey’s fists are frozen in front of her.  It’s watching her, and she’s watching it, wanting to run or scream because there’s no way she can fight it, but if it’s a robber she has to do something, right?  Something-

“Get out of my room,” the shadow speaks, deeply, humanly, obviously annoyed.

_Oh._

_He’s the runaway_ , she remembers, and she’s a fool.  A flustered, blushing fool, rushing to tug off the gloves and vanish.  “ I’m- I’m so sorry,” she gushes, and she looks ridiculous ducking a gloved hand under her arm and pulling.  And the runaway whose name she didn’t bother to ask for earlier is just standing there, obscenely tall and towering, and waiting for this complete stranger to leave _his room_.  “I didn’t know!  Luke said all the rooms were upstairs, so I just thought…” She grimaces.  “Well, I thought this was storage.”

She knows he’s letting her words stew in awkward silence on purpose.  

“Of course,” he replies finally, dryly, “because storage rooms have beds.”

In hindsight, she should’ve seen that coming.  But in her defense… More than once, she’s slept in a place just like this, and it had never been called a bedroom.

“Some do,” she retaliates, defensive but quiet.  Like saying it is something she immediately regrets confessing (and why is she bothering to, anyway?).  Her cheeks are still red, and she’s still trying to get those _damned gloves_ off.  He stands there, offering no more snide remarks or any help.

“Sorry,” Rey fumes, frustrated with herself and this whole painful scenario.  He’s _looming_ over her, pressuring her whether he intends to or not, and she hates how minuscule she feels all of a sudden.  “The glove is stuck.”

The shadow rushes towards Rey in two earth-swallowing steps, and impulsively she raises her fists, steps back.  There’s still an influx of adrenaline pumping through her, and her muscles clench.  Her eyes widen in warning.  She hopes she looks terrifying, rather than terrified.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the shadow says, offended and still very annoyed.  Despite the, feeble, undertone of gentleness he’s trying to convey, all Rey can see is his ominous mask.

“Says the skull,” she mutters, annoyed by his annoyance.

A hand moves up, wrapped in bandages, and yanks down the skull’s jaw to reveal a chin, cheeks, mouth.  With another tug, what was a dark mass becomes a hoodie pulled back and ski mask undone- a boy emerges.  Yet human as he is, he remains just as spectral as before, perhaps even more so.  And Rey can’t quite decide which is worse- the unknown of the space before, or the violent nature of his world now revealed.  She marvels, either way, fascinated by the red comets that cut across the wide expanse of his lips and jawline- bloody.  His cheeks are bruised galaxies of purples and blues, and his eyes black holes, consuming-

“Better?”  The boy teases, and his voice turns her attention back to his lips.  Rey realizes then that his hands are reaching for her, still raised, fists.  There’s something tightening around her throat.  She swallows, and frowns when that does nothing to alleviate the discomfort.

“Not really,” she replies slowly, her eyes relentlessly returning to his lips, which are- “You’re bleeding,” she blurts.  “From, um,” she tries to point to where it would be on her face, forgetting the gloves completely.  For some reason, Rey just doesn’t want to say: “from the lip- the bottom one.”

“I know.”  He replies flatly, face equally devoid of care.  His focus is resolute on the gloves and, as he unstraps one, Rey notices the bandages on his hands are also rather… red.

“Oh,” Rey mumbles, realizing bloody lips are definitely not on his list of concerns.  “...Okay.”

It’s quiet for a moment as he unstraps the other glove and then, for some reason, his motions still.  There’s a spark in his eyes, a thought catching light.  He’s still looking at the gloves, and she’s looking at his hands, which are locked like shackles below her wrists.

“Who are you?  A new orphan, drug baby, or what?  I’ve never seen you before,” he says curtly, and Rey can tell he doesn’t _do_ conversations often.

“I’ve never seen you either,” is her brilliant, bitter comeback.  His eyes lift up to catch hers, and she feels completely invaded.

“What’s your name?”  He tries to improve.

“What’s yours?”  She’s still working on not being offended, on not being oddly uncomfortable in a new sense of the word.  It’s difficult to glare at him when she has to crane her neck to do so, and it’s even more impossible with the way he’s holding her arms.  Threatening isn’t how she’s looking, at all.  And he knows it.

His eyes turn away from hers, and for some reason she senses conflict in the tension of his jaw, a small spasm of an eyebrow.  It’s an easy enough question for someone who’s playing interrogator, yet he’s struggling.

Finally, he looks down at the gloves and Rey swears she sees the twitch of a smile.

“Ben.”

“Rey.”

She thinks that settles things, that he’ll let go of his steel grip, but instead it seems to tighten.

“It’s the middle of the night, Rey. You shouldn’t be here.  So, why are you?”  Ben asks, locking onto her with a strange intensity that rattles.  

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Because of this, you rummage around a stranger’s house, and toy with things that aren’t yours?”  For someone who apparently doesn’t talk to anyone, Ben likes to prod into her business.  And though he sounds more curious than anything, she hears accusation and that riles her right up.

“Like I said,” she bites out.  “I _thought_ it was storage.”

“Doesn’t make anything in here yours, so-”

“ _I know_ !  I know none of this is mine,” she growls, and its the plainness of his statement that gets to her most, and she’s reacting before she really acknowledges it.  She yanks at her arms, trying futilely to pull free of him.  For a moment, Ben’s eyes appear to widen in surprise.  But as quickly as the emotion appears, it’s gone.  “I’m not a _thief,_ if that’s what you’re trying to say!  Obviously, since I’m trying so damn hard to _get these gloves off_!”

After a moment of struggling to remove herself, and after a following moment of breathing, Rey collects herself.  She blinks, and tries to better explain even if the audience doesn’t really care.  But he’s looking at her in a way that says, well, maybe he does.  “I just… I thought they were forgotten so I…”

“Okay.”  

Rey doesn’t care if he believes her or gets what she’s incapable of saying, really she doesn’t, but there’s a softness in his eyes- an understanding.  It has a calming effect on her.

That’s why, when he returns to removing the gloves, she doesn’t mind at all the way his hand swallows her wrist so easily.  She doesn’t mind the push and pull, or the closeness.  It’s almost… comforting.

So, when he pulls off the second glove and stiffens, she doesn’t react right away.  Nor when his hand clenches down just below her bracelet.

“Where did you get this?”  Ben’s voice is tight, almost panicked.

“I don’t remember,” Rey replies wearily, her eyes watching his.  There’s something stirring in them, and she finally starts to remember that this boy is covered in cuts and bruises, and his knuckles are covered in someone else’s blood.  She shouldn’t let him touch her in any way, and he’s got his hand around her.

“You said you weren’t a thief.  This isn’t yours,” he says, and his jaw is clenched.

“I’m not, and yes, it is,” Rey argues against her better judgment.  Her judgment was right.  Ben’s other hand reaches out, trying to grab at the bracelet to pull it off.

“Hey!” She yells a little too loudly, and tugs her arm, trying to break free.  “That’s mine!”

“No, it’s not!”

He’s intent on taking it.  The threat of losing the bracelet, the audacity of this boy to try and steal from her, to accuse _her_ of stealing the one thing she’s ever truly had- “It’s the one thing that’s mine! _Let go_!”

Everything is red as her bones crack, knuckles slamming against flesh and bone.  Ben’s hands are no longer a problem, because he’s staggering backwards, into the tower of boxes, holding his cheek.

She’s punched him.  With her bare hand.  And, _shit,_ does she feel it.  Everywhere.

Rey cradles her fist, the agonizing pain of hitting someone oddly mixing with relief when she sees her bracelet is still intact and safe on her wrist.  The emotional blender becomes louder and more mixed yet when guilt crashes into her as Ben’s hand moves and- blood.  There’s blood.  She drew blood.

“I’m so sorry,” the reaction is immediate and crushing.  “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to punch you.  You scared me- I’m sorry!”

She expects him to yell, to shove her from the room and lock the door or, worse, to call Luke and have her removed but… For some reason, Ben’s quiet.  He brushes the blood off his lip ( _now he has two lip cuts_ , she realizes in horror), and shrugs.  He doesn’t even look at it, but instead is watching her with incensed intrigue and… shame.

He looks down at the floor for a heartbeat before looking back up.  “It’s nothing,” he says finally, calmly.  And she gets a sense that he’s trying to, in turn, calm her.  It’s working, a little.  “I’m sorry I scared you.  You’re not a thief.  It just,” he looks away, jaw clenched and throat swallowing something old and bitter.  “It looked really familiar, but must be exhaustion playing tricks.  I was wrong.”

Her knuckles are still burning from contact, her muscles are still tense, so it doesn’t make sense how he’s so _okay_ with the blood or the bruises on his face, and she wonders what he does that keeps him out all night only to return battered and tired and temperamental… but she nods and says “okay.”  Because, what else could she really say?

Awkwardly, Rey bends down and grabs the gloves from where they lay at her feet.  She reaches across the way, offering them in truce to Ben.

“Keep them,” he says abruptly, and she knows now not to be offended by the tone.  He looks so uncomfortable, but more so with himself than her.  Though, this doesn’t stop her from feeling equally uncomfortable.  Her guilt level is still pretty high, and he’s making it worse.

“No, I couldn’t,” she rejects the offer, shaking her head, ears red.  Her heart is pounding in her head.    It intensifies when his face softens, the shadows covering, momentarily healing his wounds enough to make him look like the kid he is.

“They're yours.”  He’s still apologizing, understanding, and Rey’s unsure how to react to this.  It’s unfamiliar territory.  So, she resolves to refuse again.  He can see it, and says, “they’re useless to me.  I forgot all about them.  So, keep them.  You could use them.”

The last bit sounds sarcastic, and she hones in on that.  “ _Use_ them?”

“To deal with your anger.”

Rey scoffs at that.  “I’m not angry.”

Ben raises an eyebrow at that, something she wasn’t even sure he could do.  It almost distracts her from what he says.  “My bottom lip says otherwise.”

That immediately sobers her up, even if Ben was, possibly, joking; she can’t really tell with him.  She makes a face and adjusts to hold the gloves better.   _Her_ _gloves_ , she thinks to herself, and it’s a warming, giddy thought.  Though, she wouldn’t dare gloat about it.  Given the circumstances.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, looking down, trying to stifle a smile that would be a dead giveaway of her joy.  She’s not quite sure how best to show gratitude to a boy whose expressional range could fit on her pinky nail.

If she hadn’t been so focused on looking down and controlling her own emotions, Rey would’ve seen a rare glimpse at the finer end of Ben’s expressional range.  For, he was smiling.  It was a fleeting thing, like a shooting star.  By the time Rey looks up, it’s gone.

She knows she’s supposed to leave now, and her feet are turning to go, but there’s something remaining of Ben’s smile in his eyes.  Something teetering there.  As she walks towards the door with another mumbled “thanks again,” Ben pries his mouth open and says-

“You can sleep here.  If you need to.”

Rey nearly crashes into the wall.  “What?”

“I have a hard time sleeping,” Ben explains practically.  “I’ll end up elsewhere anyway, so you can stay here.  I’ll go.”

After he made such a big deal about this being his room?  Rey is definitely suffering from whiplash.  To get a breath of fresh air, she opens the door.

“I’m fine, really.  It’s your room.  I couldn’t-”

“You couldn’t sleep.  You came here.  So, stay.”

She stands at the doorway, the one of many she’s been prepared to leave through, and here is this boy who’s telling her she can stay.  Rey doesn’t understand him fully, and he doesn’t understand quite why she likes forgotten things or why she can’t sleep in her own bed upstairs. But somehow he understands enough.  Enough to give her room, and a place.  A place that is still, and quiet, and with just the right window.  Just behind him, she can see her north star, still shining in the same spot she saw it last.  She shouldn’t need it, shouldn’t be afraid to leave it, but-

She lets go of the doorknob.  “Okay.  I’ll stay.”

“Okay.  I’ll go.”

Unceremoniously, Ben gets up and walks to the door, where Rey still stands, still a little shy about just… staying in another person’s, _a boy’s_ , room.  He pauses next to her, a thought popping up- almost a worry.

“Just don’t,” Ben pauses, and clenches his jaw.  He looks up at the ceiling.   _He’s trying to work out how to say something,_ Rey realizes and tries not to smile.  They’re too close for that.  Thankfully, when he looks back at her, her face is composed.  “Please don’t toy with the gears by the bed.  I’m working on something.”

Of course he is.

Rey grimaces sheepishly.  “I kind of…”

“Toyed with them,” he concludes, amused.

“They fell and I picked them up, and I organized them, and I… toyed with them.  Just a little bit.  I won’t touch them again.  I promise,” Rey rants, feeling bad all over again.  “Unless they fall, again.”

It’s then, Rey swears she sees a shooting star.

Ben sighs, and steps through the doorway.  He stops on the other side, and turns to her one last time.  It’s strange, seeing him outside the room, in the complete darkness of the hallway.  He’s no longer an eerie specter.  He’s just another kid in a house, wearing a hoodie and staying out past curfew.  She can’t see the marks on his face, or the bandages on his hands.  Knowing they’re there makes her chest clench.

“Goodnight, Rey,” he says, and it sounds like a wish.  She smiles.

“Goodnight, Ben.”

That night, she dreams of home.


	2. Alphard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s a hand, brushing gently at her hair. If she’s really supposed to wake up, which she really should, the voice shouldn’t do that. Really, it shouldn’t.
> 
> “I’ll come back for you.” 
> 
> Rey can feel the outline of someone else’s cheek upon the pillow. It’s subtle, beneath the disarray of her hair and her sleep-pressed face. Around her, the cushion of the bed hugs and bends to her shape, and someone else’s. The quiet, insistent thought nudges her awake, forces her to remember that the bed, the pillow, the pile of sheets atop her, aren’t hers. None of it hers.
> 
> It all belongs to someone else. To a boy . To Ben.
> 
> In record-breaking time, the dream dismantles and Rey is awake. Her eyes, wide even in the morning light, soak in her surroundings, hyper-aware and expecting. She looks to the tower of boxes in the corner and the night before unpacks itself in the day- a boy fabricated from shadows, bruise-patched skin, a star and a smile.

Sunlight tiptoes across the room and finds Rey where she hides, in a bundled heap on a futon.    It tickles her closed eyelids and, in the fanciful haze of sleep, she imagines the warmth of a mother’s touch.  

_“Wake up, sweetheart,” a voice says, smelling sweetly of maple syrup.  The sun is just behind the voice, the face half sunbeam and shadow, ethereal and untraceable.  But Rey can feel the vibrance of loving eyes and laughing lips._

Smiling, Rey unfurls beneath the sheets, nuzzles the pillow, and breathes in deeply- wishing it would pull her back into the dream.  There’s a trace of someone else, heady and blanketed over the scent of muted detergent and linen; it’s familiar, but so far removed from the mother’s embrace she’d hope for.  Yet, she buries herself in the aroma, tries to name it, gives up and takes another breath. She relaxes into the new comfort, drowsily sighs herself deeper into it.

_There’s a hand, brushing gently at her hair.  If she’s really supposed to wake up, the voice shouldn’t do that.  Really, it shouldn’t._

_“I’ll come back for you.”_  

Gradually, the more she sinks, the more Rey can feel the outline of  _someone else’s_  cheek upon the pillow.  It’s subtle, beneath the disarray of  _her_  hair and  _her_  sleep-pressed face.  Around her, the cushion of the bed hugs and bends to her shape, and  _someone else’s._   The quiet, insistent thought nudges her awake, forces her to remember that the bed, the pillow, the pile of sheets atop her, aren’t hers.  None of it hers.

It all belongs to someone else.  To  _a boy_.  To Ben.

In record-breaking time, the dream dismantles and Rey is awake.  She shoots to the edge of the bed, and throws her feet off the side.  Her eyes, wide even in the morning light, soak in her surroundings, hyper-aware and expecting.  She looks to the tower of boxes and the night before unpacks itself in the day- a boy fabricated from shadows, bruise-patched skin, a star and a smile.

She can’t really explain it, but she expected to find him, Ben, sleeping there on the floor.  He isn’t.

Her chest caves in with a breathy exhale.  Against her better judgment, her body lazily sinks back upon the sheets.  She lays like this for a peaceful minute, staring at the ceiling as the morning spreads across it and her, and everything in between.  It’s chilly without the blankets atop her, but Rey can feel a distant heat touching her skin, wrapping around her, as the sun rises. She still has the sketch of a memory in her head, of a smile on her face, and it’s not completely uncommon for her to wake like this- but there’s something new here.  She wants to rest in it a little while longer.

Rey’s head lulls over to the side, her nosy tendencies drawing her to sniff out the room again now that it’s well lit.  It looks different in the day- not so much homy as it is lived in. Papers once camouflaged in night reveal themselves: sketches taped to the wall, discarded thoughts crumpled and piled in a bin below the window.  Some of the books on the shelves, she sees now, have mountains of paper peeking from the tops. The books’ spines are bent once, twice, countless times. Idly, she imagines bending one, opening to a page and finding pencil lines trailing under words, exposing secrets.  

 _Ben definitely does that,_ she thinks to herself, though she knows nothing about him.  Except his name, and-

Her dangling foot lands on rough skin.   _The gloves_ .  She lets her toes trail over the old leather, and tries to pick up the lace with her feet, and fails.  With a huff, Rey sits up and scoops the gloves off the floor. For another peaceful minute, she holds and revels in them.  They’re  _hers_.  

Unlike the room she is still squatting in.

When Rey finally gets herself out of bed and opens the door, she fully expects to see Ben waiting impatiently just beyond- maybe even sleeping on the floor there.  He isn’t. The hallway is empty, Ben’s whereabouts unknown.

She should be used to it by now, what - _always_ \- comes next.  It’s the same realization she has, every second day, of every new placing:

_I’m alone._

For some reason, it hits Rey harder than ever before.

 

* * *

 

Rey takes a moment to stand in the quiet, breathes, and steps into the kitchen for breakfast.  She lands in a warzone.

“The milk is gone!  How is the milk gone?” Poe cries out, a hollow gallon jug flailing around in the air.  Rey dodges it as she slides her backpack onto the counter, and discreetly tries to find the silverware.

“It’s not gone,” Finn comments, voice garbled around a spoonful of- Rey squints and decides she doesn’t want to know.  “It’s in my bowl.”

The jug goes full-on flying.  Finn ducks forward to protect his food- whatever it is.  The jug hits him square in the head. He keeps eating.

“You took the last of the milk for  _that_?” Poe points at the bowl of… something, outraged.  Rose, sitting next to Finn at the counter, makes a face too.

“Stop dissing my breakfast,” Finn grumbles around another mouthful.  Rey finally finds the right drawer, and it’s a mess of spoons and forks and knives all tangled together.  She sets to organizing them.

“You can’t put oatmeal and cereal and yogurt together,” Poe is desperate, and determined where he stands in front of Rey.  This must be a reoccurring intervention. “You just can’t.”

“Rosey puts yogurt in her cereal.  Don’t you?” she hears Finn say, the question hanging open like a trap.  Rey quietly closes the drawer and hops past Poe, trying now to remember where the breakfast things are kept.  The last group home had it all labeled, and locked, but here...

“I do,” Rose replies hesitantly.

Rey opens a cabinet and stands frozen, stumped.  Towering above her are four, filled shelves containing: five different name brands of cereal, a jar of oatmeal mix, of grits, an assortment of dried fruits and nuts, a stray Pop-Tart packet, a collection of discarded breakfast bars, and she hasn’t even looked in the fridge yet-

“Oatmeal is warm cereal,” Finn is saying, but it comes to her through a can.  Specifically, the can of peaches she’s staring at- for no particular reason except to focus on something.  Her stomach is completely empty, like that milk jug on the floor, yet there’s something bubbling and expanding inside.  “So…”

Her hand hovers over one container, and then another and another.   _Focus,_ she reminds herself and organizes the food by levels of want.  Immediately, she pushes aside the oatmeal.

“It’s  _disgusting_ , Finn.”

Rey scoops up all the cereal boxes, hesitates for a split second before pouring each into her bowl.  

“It’s a polyamorous match made in heaven.”

Sprinkles of nuts and dried fruit rain onto the bounty, with a pile of broken Pop-Tart bits at the tip-top.

“ _You’re_  disgusting, Finn.”

She dives past Poe and steals into the fridge, forcing herself to look past the masses of unknown foods for the last yogurt.  She snatches it up, her entire body practically humming.

“What do you think, Rey?” Finn calls.

At the sound of her name, she jumps a little and spins around- spoon in mouth and bowl precariously overflowing.  Over the handle of the spoon, she takes another, quick glance at Finn’s breakfast before spinning back around to the counter.  Somewhat paranoid about the others watching her, she hunches over her bowl and blends in the yogurt with a not-so balanced mix of eagerness and care.

“I think whatever you’re eating, it’s the one thing I don’t want to eat!”  Rey babbles as she mixes, that something bubbling in her belly coming out in an unexpected burst of energy.  

The second it’s out, her teeth clink together in an awkward grin.  She turns her head to gauge her friend’s reaction.

Finn guffaws, and gasps, “ _traitor_.”

Grin widening, Rey shakes her head.  “Can’t be a traitor if I haven’t made any alliances.”

Yet, she plops down on the stool beside him.  This allows Finn a full bird's-eye view of her little bowl of horrors.  His mouth hangs open, an accusatory finger aimed at the spoonful of chaos Rey shoots towards her mouth. For a second she stiffens, expecting the rest to follow suit and turn on her.  They don't.

She chews merrily.

“What’s the difference between hers and mine?!”  Finn exclaims.

The answer comes from all sides, and is bluntly unanimous: “No oatmeal.”

Overruled, and bitter, Finn chooses to finish eating rather than fight a losing battle.  Unfortunately for Rey, this means the target has moved onto her.

“You woke up pretty early,” Rose mentions casually from above her mug.  It’s not an attack, yet the comment stills Rey’s otherwise enthusiastic munching.  “Neither of us even heard you leave.”

“Oh, yeah.  I, uh-” Rey swallows down a rather lumpy clump of cereal.  It buys her a little time to correctly frame last night. But then her eyes land on her backpack and, while she doesn’t have x-ray vision, she can see the boxing gloves she shoved inside clear as day.  For some reason, she scans the others, wonders if any of them can see what she does. They’re clueless. Her jaw clenches possessively around the truth.

“I like to go for morning jogs.”

“You, too?” Paige jumps in, grinning.  The yogurt sticks to the back of Rey’s throat.  “I used to jog all the time with my dad! I’d love to come with you next time.  It’ll motivate me to get back at it.”

There’s a wistfulness to Paige’s eyes when she says this, and a sense of foreboding for Rey.  Slowly, she nods and smiles in agreement. Now, she’s a morning jogger. A morning jogger who shoves her face full of sugary carbs.

It makes as much sense as-

“Ben!” Rose calls sweetly, being Rose.  And being Rey, Rey’s entire body gives her away.  She jolts in her seat, head snapping in the direction of Rose’s greeting:  “Good morning!”

In the doorway, like before, she finds him.  Only, this time, she can see Ben in his entirety.  The morning and ceiling lights don’t shy away from his face, and Rey’s not exactly sure what she expects, again, but whatever it was it isn’t this.  

The first thing she notes are his lips-  _the cuts_  on his lips.  So she had, in fact, left her mark.  The second thing is the lack of skull ski masks.  He’s not even wearing black, as she definitely expected him to wear.  But the dark grey tones of his long-sleeve shirt and jeans aren’t too far off the mark.

What strikes Rey most is: he doesn’t look misplaced in the day.  Ben isn’t a shadow among shadows like before, or even a lingering one in the light.  He’s just very tall and bruised, and he doesn’t care to hide it.

But Ben definitely doesn’t care to remain exposed.  He assesses the situation for a quick second before moving briskly to the cabinet Rey’s just demolished.  He avoids physical contact or even acknowledgment of the others around him. It’s all very strategic, purposeful, practical- like the winter clothes he wears, and the breakfast bars he silently places in his pockets.  She understands the urgency to get and go, fast. Even if she thinks:  _at least say hi back._

It's in this moment, Ben turns his head and spots her.  She's frowning, and doesn't waver in her disapproval no matter how intense or intimidating he means his stare to be.  There’s a flicker of a thought in his eyes -  _brown_   _eyes,_ she idly marks in her notes - and when they glance down at the pile on her spoon, the thought multiplies. There’s a twitch of amusement on his lips, and she suspects they open to say what's on his mind-

Poe makes a disgruntled noise.  The thoughts scatter into shadow.  

Now Ben looks misplaced.

His eyes darken as he finally looks at the others, scanning faces without really seeing them, and whatever hope of an expression is gone as he passes over Poe’s glower.

She watches, following him as he starts to leave just as briskly and silently as he’d entered, and she doesn't expect it when someone abruptly says:

“Rose said good morning, Ben.”

The someone is Rey.

Perhaps if it had been someone else, anyone else, he would’ve kept walking- or slung a fist, if the looks on Finn and Poe’s faces are any indication.  

Instead, Ben hesitates at the doorway.  He’s still turned away, all broad, stretched out back and legs.  He takes up the entire frame, and it should be fear in her head; after all, his knuckles are still red, a reminder to the world that he doesn’t back down from a fight.  Yet, it’s not fear that has her regretting the brazen comment.

There’s a shift in the way Ben carries his shoulders.  There are deep crescent shadows on the palm of his hand- but he hadn’t clenched his fist once. Not in this room.

“Good morning, Rose.”

He’s gone before the period lands on his sentence.  Before Rey can put a pin on why  _she_ feels ashamed.

“Look at him go,” Poe grumbles into the still aftermath, discontent plastered all over him.  “Like he’s better than us.”

Paige, surprisingly, is the one to slap him upside the head.  Finn looks a little too shocked, and Rose a little too pleased, from the series of events to properly respond.

“Better than  _you?_ ” Rey prods, to distract herself from a queasiness stirring in her stomach.  “What would that make him? An orphaned prince?” She’s only, partially, teasing.

“He wishes,” Poe scoffs.  His eyes stray over to Rey, narrowed in accusation.  “I thought you didn’t want to know… since you aren’t staying or whatever.”

“I’m not.”  

The bubbling is back in her gut, but it’s different this time.

“Okay then.”

Her stomach is in knots.

“But-”

“School awaits!  Van’s leaving with or without you all in five minutes!”  Luke is a flash in the hallway, eyes purposefully avoiding the biohazard in the kitchen, and Rey hears the front door unlock.  There are groans all around, but she’s quiet.

Rey’s the first to get up, but the last to leave.

 

* * *

 

“Let’s go, let’s go!  Buckle up!”

Rey has a love/hate relationship with cars.  She loves watching people fix them, drive them.  The sound of an engine beating alive, humming beneath the soles of her feet sends a thrill through her- especially after it’s been so broken and silent.  Sometimes, when Rey’s restless and trying so desperately to sleep, the image of a steering wheel, her hands gripped tight around it and the sight of the night sky painted across the windshield, stars moving aside as she drives to a pulse in her ears- that alone can bring her peace.

Rey absolutely hates sitting in the back of a car.  She always has, reckons she always will.

Luke’s minivan is no exception.  Perhaps it’s even worse this time, since there’s two rows of backseats, and she’s essentially seated in the trunk.

The belt buckle clicks, trapping her in.  Her stomach is still turning, and so she presses her head against the cool window- which always helps.  Not this time.

The car engine starts, and the doors lock.

_There’s a hand on hers, squeezing.  The firm pressure of someone who promises not to go._

“Wait!” Rey blurts, head shooting up.  Her hands are frantic at the door handle, clawing.  “We left behind-”

“It’s fine,” Finn says quietly.  His hand is pressed reassuringly against her shoulder.  If they were anywhere else, she’d find it as comforting as he means it, but not here.  The hand she felt,  _squeezing_  hers, is gone.  Rey shakes him off.

“Ben already left.  He walks,” Finn explains gently, despite looking wounded by her impulse.

Her head and chest are too filled, preoccupied by anxiety and something expanding and flammable.  She doesn’t have room to feel sorry about hurting her friend. Not until it, too, fills her chest and explodes.

 _This will pass_ , she tries to soothe herself.  It’s just a part of the cycle- another departure to yet another unknown destination.   _It’s temporary._

Rey presses her head back onto the window as the car takes off.  There’s a song playing on the radio, which she’s heard so many times now it fades to white noise.  The pale suburban landscape blurs into a beige desert, bland and endless. It looks, feels nothing like home.  It nauseates her further.

_“Where is home?  Can you point to it for me?” The voice says, its hand still firm and squeezing hers; it’s only then that she can feel how miniscule her hand is, how much it shakes.  The hand is a universe, surrounding and questioning her- a speck, floating and aimless- about her own existence, as though it doesn’t already know. Perhaps it doesn’t._

_Rey squints against the lights shining in her eyes- if home is near, she can’t see it.  The stars are so bright tonight, and the world around her is a kaleidoscope of blue and red, blue and red.  They are her favorite colors._

_They were her favorite colors._

“So, do you feel at home yet?” Rose asks from beside Finn, pulling Rey out of the sandbox of her thoughts.  It’s well-meant, a distraction to kill time and silence. It’s ill-received. Slowly, Rey’s head turns and her expression, she knows, is a little too biting.  And so are her words.

“Do  _you_ feel at home without your parents?”

Rose was completely unaffected by Ben’s lack of speech or respect.  Now, her face crumbles, like a delicate pastry in Rey’s fist. The regret of hurting her friends is finally starting to fill Rey’s chest.  It’s ready to explode.

She really,  _really_  despises being in the backseat of this car.

“What she meant to say is,” Finn mediates, and Rey can see understanding fighting out disappointment in his eyes, “do you think this place is better or worse than the others you’ve been to?”

Rey is quiet, composing herself to be the Rey people like.  It’s easier to do when the world isn’t spinning so visibly beneath her, and inside her.  

She’s regretting eating all that food.  She’s regretting a lot today and it’s only morning.

“I don’t really compare it like that,” Rey finally admits, calmly.  “I don’t compare at all.”

“Oh, come on!  There has to be a favorite.”

“No.  I mean…”  Rey shrugs, and smiles.  She leans away from the door, towards her friends, like she’s sharing a treasured secret.  “Better or worse, it’s all temporary. You can deal with a lot if you know it doesn’t last.”

Rose’s face comes back together in a grin, but Finn’s is strangely still.  He’s watching Rey tentatively, and she realizes then, for the first time, that he’s kin to her.  She hasn’t asked him, doesn’t want to ask about how long he’s been in the system- and he hasn’t asked either.  Sometimes, often, it’s not necessary. That kind of time has a way of scratching itself into the eyes, little black tallies so dismal they nearly blend in, nearly hide the nature of the life lived.  Kin recognize it, though- the one trait they always share. Rey can tell Finn’s counting her tallies now.

“Have you…  How bad was your lot?”

_The hand that holds her is not alone.  The others are just as firm, squeezing, pulling-_

She blinks and the count is lost.  “Like I said: I don’t compare.”

“What are you kids whispering about back there?” Luke calls, voice booming over the radio, even though he looks miles away.  Rey glances up and catches his eyes, steady, in the rearview mirror. He should be watching the road, but no one seems to be concerned.  Least of all him.

“We’re trying to figure out if Rey likes us,” Finn blabs with a grin, wiping away any strain on his face in an instant.  “Or if she’s planning to run away.”

Rey’s mouth falls open.  “Finn,  _what the hell_ -”

“Are you, Rey?  Let me know so I can pull over.  Wouldn’t want you to scrape your one pair of jeans jumping out of my car.”  Despite the humored tone, the lightness of it all and the laughs from the ones around her, Luke’s looking at her with a weight that draws at her.  It presses right into her chest.

It almost feels like a hug.

“No,” Rey says, smiling; it’s crooked, dipping under that weight, that genuine concern she rarely ever encounters.  Almost always, she finds it in the eyes of the rearview mirror.

“I actually don’t have the urge to do that today.”

“Good.”  The weight lifts, Luke’s eyes calming and reflecting her smile.  Then, finally, he turns back to the road. “Because I promise you, I  _will_  make the others chase after you.”

“Finn,” Rey grits through the smile she’s holding in place, just in case Luke’s still watching.  Finn is grinning, too, but it falters when he looks over to Rey. Her smile is more teeth, more snarl than anything else.  “I could murder you right now.”

Finn doesn’t doubt it.  His skin pales a shade or two, and he flounders.  “What? Why? What did I do?”

Rey eases up on the blood-lust, and whispers, “they still have me flagged as a flight-risk.”

She isn’t, anymore; that much she’s promised Leiah and the countless therapists and desk-torsos over the past few years.  And Rey’s stayed true to it- except for one… or two reckless moments. The first landed her in a group home for troubled teens.  She would never admit it, force herself to relive it, but compared to many other placements that one was the worst; she’d had no freedom.  It was stripped down to the bone: doors unable to lock or close, not even being able to piss without someone just around the corner watching.  She’d tried to run from there, too- making it two reckless marks against her record.

But that was then.  Now, it’s so close - the end -, and there’s no need to run if her parents know where she’ll be.  Rey tells this to anyone with her file on their lap. Their faces always look so grim. The note stays at the end of her profile, defining her:  _flight-risk_.

“Shit.  Sorry.” Finn looks like he’s been socked in the stomach and regret bruises his face.  Immediately, Rey softens. She gives into impulse and pushes a finger into his frown line, nudging it up until he’s smiling along with her.

“It’s fine,” she says.  “Just, no runaway jokes, please?  I actually like it here.”

That has Finn beaming.  A little too hopefully.

Rey clears her throat.  “Am I the only one?” She asks, knowing full-well where the conversation would head otherwise.  “Or is Ben a flight-risk, too, since he ran away?”

“Oh,” Finn scoffs.  “He’s as flighty as they come.”

“So why does Poe say Ben isn’t one of us?”

“Because he isn’t, duh,” Poe jumps in, twisting around in his seat to give Rey just the right angle of his eye-roll.  Rey squints, tries to locate the antenna Poe must have on his head; the boy orbits like a satellite, looking for just the right spot to transmit gossip.

“He’s a runaway, sure, but he isn’t a foster.”

“Is he Luke’s?”  Rey whispers, eyes flashing up to their caregiver’s reflection.  Thankfully, he’s too far and busy yelling at a pedestrian to hear them. The song on the radio drowns out anything he might hear, anyway.  “Did Luke adopt him?”

Poe nearly chokes on his own spit.  “Hell no!” He says, fighting to keep his voice low.  “Ben’s parents are alive and well, and still his- even if he’s too much of a prick to deserve them.”

“But…” Rey’s eyebrows press down, trying to get a hold on the situation.  “He ran away.”

“Yeah, he did,” Poe confirms with a slow nod, eyebrows touching his hairline.  “After nearly tearing his house down. He crashed the car into it and everything.”

“ _Why_?”

Poe shakes his head.  “Who knows.”

The answer is unacceptable.  Rey looks to Finn, expecting something.  When he offers nothing, she looks to Rose, then Paige.  They’re suddenly very devoted to their studies, a book in their laps.  Rey’s stomach starts the nonsense of nausea again.

“There has to be a reason.”

“He’s a dick?” Poe offers, and finally Paige makes a move to hit his thigh with her book.  It riles him up even more. “It’s true! The first day I met him, he punched me in the face just for saying hi.”

“You touched his shoulder,” Finn clarifies.

“I was  _trying to say hi_ ,” Poe repeats stubbornly.  “No reason to go Street Fighter on me.  Breaks my heart, Leiah having to deal with that kind of kid.  She doesn’t deserve it.”

The confusion doubles her over.

“She’s his social worker?”

“No.  She’s his mom.”  

Rey’s body drops cold, the stirring gases in her stomach suddenly rock solid, pinning her to the seat below.  Poe’s still transmitting everything he knows, discovered through eavesdropping on hidden frequencies over the years.  It comes to her rough through static only she hears.

“Luke’s her brother.  After everything that happened, the police pressed for her to put him in a group home for troubled teens, for therapy and all that, but she couldn’t do it.  Figured Luke was the better option. He’s been here since, ‘rehabilitating’. Leiah always comes by, to check on him but he’s never ‘around’. Shuts himself up in his room.  It’s a fucking mess.”

Through the static, Rey picks up all she needs to know about Ben: he has family, they love him, he hates them, he’s alone by choice.

“How long has he been away from home?”  She asks through the tightness in her throat, signal weak.  Poe still manages to pick it up.

“Three years.”

Rey thinks in days, and the math here is elementary to her.  Yet, she can’t wrap her mind around it.

“Destination: education!” Luke calls out their arrival.  Rey looks out the window. The first thing she sees, waiting at the loop, alone, is a mother she never knew.  

 _Leiah_.

Rey is the first out of the car.  

 

* * *

 

She dives, head first, a desperate meteor on collision-course.  When Rey lands, Leiah lets out a sound of surprise. She welcomes the crash with open arms, pulling in the debris.  Yet, despite the kindness hugging her, Rey is exposed- infinitesimally small and stuck at the bottom of a crater.

Surrounded, yet wholly  _alone_.

 

* * *

 

“Looks like you’ve made some friends.”

“Yeah,” Rey replies distantly.  “Some.”

She’s staring at Leiah’s eyes.  They’re the same old, dark expressive eyes she’d seen just that morning, looking at her from across the kitchen.  How she hadn’t realized before…

The boy from the window, a friend hiding, hadn’t been a figment of her starved imagination.  He was a real live boy,  _Leiah’s son_ , with those same burdened eyes.  Except, now, Leiah’s are alight, a sun turned away from Rey.  She’s gazing through the thin layer of glass, separating the calm administrative office from the swarm of students in the hall.  There’s an insistent tapping at the window, hands flailing in greeting: Poe, knocking his fist against it to get Leiah and Rey’s attention, with Finn and Rose both grinning and waving their hands.  Paige keeps trying to pull Poe’s arm away from the glass;  _before you break it, idiot,_  her mouth reads.

Rey lets out a small laugh, though she can’t muster up a smile just yet.  She waves at the motley crew, who in turn mouth her name, smothering the glass with their breath- obviously trying to get either Leiah or Rey to fully crack.  The aged receptionist finally snaps to life at his desk and shuts the blinds, casting a scolding glare towards the small sofa where Rey and Leiah sit waiting.

“The principal is on her way.  You can wait in her office. Now,” the old man says.  He looks more like a skeleton, risen from the grave, clearly wanting peace and quiet restored.

 _Wrong job for that,_ Rey thinks with a smirk.  As she gets up, she hears a snort from beside her and catches Leiah in the midst of a fit, laugh lines long and stretched.  For a second, she wonders if Ben shares this trait, too, or if the resemblance ends at eye-level.

“What’s so funny?”

“That geezer hates me.  Never gets old. Can’t wait for him to get fired,” Leiah sighs and shakes her head, guiding Rey into the principal’s office.  She doesn’t even look to check if it’s the right room.

 _Of course not,_ Rey reminds herself,  _she’s been here before._

In a way, so has Rey.

By muscle memory alone, blindfolded, she could walk through the school and into the office she now stands in.  The layout of education, she’s come to learn, is practically universal. The halls, the bathrooms and classrooms and cafeteria; all of it blends from one place to the next in a predictable pattern with limited variation in cleanliness and age.  Yet, despite the redundancy, the principal’s office is a sort of favorite of Rey’s.

It’s as close to seeing the future as she’s ever going to get, every aspect of the room exposing to her how her stay will ultimately be.

All principal offices have a particular standard to meet.  Encyclopedias, yearbooks, guidebooks must always be present, all lined up on an imposing shelf system behind the desk.  Beside it, a headshot of the principal’s credentials: schools he or she went to, degrees protected from scrutiny behind glass.  And, at the center of the system, a shining name plaque.

But it’s the little things Rey eagerly looks for: the amount of dust on each book, the photos that are, or aren’t, scattered around those degrees, and the little knick-knacks behind the name.  Almost every principal has some kind of stress ball within arm’s reach; which side of the desk reveals their preferred writing hand, and the style gives a peek at personality. Rey grimaces, remembering a rather alarming one in the shape of a kid’s head; that school doesn’t hold many fond memories for Rey.  

Rey scans the desk for a tell of who she’s dealing with this time around, but finds no clues.  No stress ball, or any knick-knacks for her to scour over and dissect. Not even a plaque to center on.  Instead, there is a pile of cardboard boxes at the corner of the room.

Waiting, and not knowing, is not a favorite of Rey’s.

“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” a voice comes wafting in from the doorway, soothing and smelling of camomile.  Where a stress ball ought to be on the desk, a pink mug touches down. Rey breathes in, and the tea’s aromatic vapours ease the nails out of Rey’s palms.  Finally feeling the sting of it, Rey blinks and relaxes clenched fists. She looks up onto a radiant, new, feminine face, and an outstretched hand.

“I’m Amy-Lynn Hold, and you must be Rey,” the woman says softly, welcomingly.  “Leiah has told me all about you, and it seems like we’re in this together. I’m new, too.  Though,” Amy-Lynn Hold’s face blooms into a smile, “you’re not really new to this at all, are you?”

Finally cracking, Rey grins.  

“Definitely not,” she says and, in a flash, she’s up, hand eagerly reaching out for Amy-Lynn’s.  

Though there’s not a single material item to base this new character on, there’s something of great substance surrounding her.  Amy-Lynn lays her free hand atop theirs, the shake and grip snug. When she lets go, the scent of herbs and flowers holds onto Rey.  Rey sits back down and takes a deep breath, refreshed.

“Alright,” Amy-Lynn says, gently clapping her hands together.  Her eyes are steadily centered on Rey, and there’s a look of excitement that is unusual for this kind of conversation.  At least, for Rey. It’s usually so very tedious and repetitive: the same routine of selecting bottom of the barrel electives, and getting tossed preliminary classes.  Which, with Amy-Lynn Hold, sounds bearable. But there’s something out-of-place here, more so than the boxes or the pink mug where the stress ball should be.

“After talking with Leiah, and properly yelling at a few of your old schools for records and grabbing a hold of some old teachers… I’m in agreement with your social worker that, well-”

Rey’s nails are back at her palms, digging.

“You’re a very bright student, Rey.”

She blinks.  “Thank you?”

“No, thank you,” Amy-Lynn counters with a small laugh.  Rey can feel the rays from Leiah’s smile beaming across her left cheek.  “For putting up with the boredom, and anxiety, of your last placement. I promise this school, this place, will do better by you.”

It’s meant to ease Rey, like the camomile and the soft jests, but it has the opposite effect.  Rey shifts in her seat. “How?”

“Well,” Amy-Lynn hums and taps the folder Rey hadn’t even noticed before.  It’s the same manila type as all the rest. Yet. “I took the liberty of putting you in some new classes, in spite of what you were previously enrolled in.  I hear you enjoy the sciences, and it shows. So, I managed to place you in the chemistry honors class. I would have offered advanced placement, but unfortunately it’s too far into the year for that.  Now, for mathematics, you should be in geometry, and you were, but the last school put you a level higher… in pre-cal? Did you request that?”

“There wasn’t any room in geometry, so,” Rey mumbles, fidgeting.  Amy-Lynn’s eyes darken for a moment, embittered, and then glance down at the file in her hand.  She sighs, opens it, and pulls out a paper- Rey’s new schedule. When her eyes lift, they’re light again, optimistic.  Rey feels that optimism touch her shoulders, softening the tense muscles there.

“Well, _we_  made room.  You’re in geometry, and you’ll have a tutor during study hall to help you catch up with what you’ve missed - which isn’t much, but I’ve informed your teacher and should anything make you anxious, just let him know.  And me. I’m here, always, for you.”

Rey is resolved to hope so.  She smiles. “Okay.”

“The electives, Amy,” Leiah mentions quietly, and Rey’s new principal nods, grin widening.

“Right!  Rey, you were in home econ and yearbook.  Do you still want those?” She looks pained just asking.  Rey laughs.

“No, no I definitely don’t.  But I’ll take what I can get, whatever you have, if there isn’t any room-”

“What do  _you_  want?”

Rey opens her mouth, but then hesitates, reconsidering and doubting.  Her gut is her nemesis again, twisting and turning and bubbling up feelings old and new- anxiety, suspicion, excitement, hope.  Determined, she takes another deep, camomile-filled breath. She decides what she wants and speaks it into being.

“Welcome to Robotics!”

She just didn’t expect it to be first period.

Rey stands at the doorway, hand stuck to the doorknob, as she takes it in: her new class.  The first thing her eyes land on is a metallic sea of parts, tumbling around and reflecting sunlight atop the teacher’s desk: ripples of wires, floating modules and disks and plates and- a foraging dream come true.  It takes every nerve in her brain to hold back her muscles, to keep from diving in and exploring. Instinctively, she grins and takes a step towards it.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing over there?” The same voice greeting her suddenly turns sharp and Rey’s head shoots up, alarmed and bracing against reprimand.  

She expected the authoritative tone to be… taller.  Her new robotics teacher is a short fellow, but what he lacks in height he makes up for in volume.  He has a booming voice, and his clothes are even louder; Rey’s never seen a teacher bold enough to wear white pants.  His arm, thin and blue-sleeved, is stretched out in front of him, pointed at -  _thank god_  - someone other than Rey.  “Hands off the merchandise! No one told you to touch anything yet.”

Rey follows the accusing arm and she can’t help but snort when she sees who it’s judging.  Poe sits in the front row, grimacing, hands held up in the air. “Sorry, RD.”

“Don’t be sorry.  Be smart, Poe,” RD responds, teasing.  Students laugh, even Paige, who sits next to him.  Embarrassment creeps red onto Poe’s cheeks. Yet, rather than fight it - as Rey predicts he will - Poe rolls his eyes and puts his hands firmly on the table.  

“So! New girl,” RD swerves, and the attention is back on her.  She, who still teeters in the doorway. “What brings you to this class?”

“I like fixing things.”

The teacher’s lips twitch, short-circuiting; he’s trying not to laugh at her so soon.  She gets the sense this is an initiation. “I think you have the wrong class. We don’t do that here.”

Despite the nerves bouncing around, along with the thought that literally everyone in the room is staring at her,  _the new girl_ , Rey closes the door and stands her ground.  Her eyebrows shoot up, and she aims a pointed stare at the small device next to RD’s lax arm.

“Really?  Because that prototype’s sensors aren’t properly connected.”

The short-circuiting stops and RD grins.  It seems she’s passed his test.

“Finally, a competent brain!” He exclaims, and immediately his head spins towards the rest of the class.  “No offense kids, but you all have been here for six months, yet all of you mindlessly accepted what I presented.  Alright, take a seat! Most of the groups are filled, so-”

“She can sit with me!”  Poe compulsively volunteers.  Paige turns her head, and blatantly stares at him.  The box filled with bars and brackets in front of her is starting to look more like stored weapons.

“You have a partner, Poe,” RD sighs, exasperated.

“No, it’s fine,” Paige says coolly.  “I get it. Go for it.”

Poe doesn’t dare look into Paige’s eyes.  His expression gradually begins to fit his mistake.  “This feels like a trap.”

“See? Being smart will save your behind,” RD comments, his eyes scanning the room and landing somewhere far off in the corner.  Rey’s still looking at the prototype, excited and itching to fix it.

“Hmm.  Well, he’ll get over it,” RD mumbles, then turns to Rey.  “You’ll partner up with Ben, over there at the back. Ben, it’s your job as her partner to help catch her up on the project.  And don’t you dare grumble at me.”

Rey’s looking at the prototype, still and dreading to move.   _Ben’s a common enough name_ , she reasons.  No need to feel nervous, or peculiarly agitated.  She holds her optimism firmly in place and looks up, reminding herself it could be someone else, anyone else.

It isn’t.

Ben sits at the very end, trying and ultimately failing to blend into the grey wall behind him.  He consumes a good portion of the room with just the size of him. The magnitude of his stare takes up the rest, watching and reaching her from afar.  And it’s ridiculous how she hadn’t seen him before, how she wasn’t pulled in. Rey makes a good show of resisting the pull as she walks over to her seat, makes a good show of keeping her face calm and her focus on the chair beside him.  She makes a good show of not revealing the exposed chasm in her chest, or the seething something at the bottom of it.

Then, someone speaks, the venom hushed, trickling and toxic to the ears:  “who’s the new freak?”

The show curtains move slightly, reveal clenched fists.  Rey keeps walking and finally gets to her seat, tries to focus and read the task card on the table.  Tries to remember that this class is what she wants, and nothing will destroy it for her.

“Oh, crap- Hey!” RD calls, and Rey freezes as she’s pulling out the chair.  Is there another open spot? The hope in her throat tastes oddly sour. “I forgot to ask:”

_“What’s your name?”  The voice asks._

Rey is unreasonably panicked.  And silent.

_Still.  In the backseat of a police car.  The blue and red beams she thought were starlight are attached to silent sirens.  She’s strapped in, stuck, after the police officers caught her trying to run. She can’t do that now._

The nausea returns, and Rey sits down, attempts to ignore the eyes on her again, pinning her down.  She’s spiraling, and  _for what?_

“She’s probably a junkie baby like the last one- serious problems,” another student whispers, but it might as well have been screamed into a megaphone.  Rey looks to the right, to the source, and it’s a blonde girl and a redheaded boy. Sneering. The look is a familiar one.

_“Aye, don’t look at me!” Someone yells from outside the police car.  A woman stands, sneering, in the doorway of a ground-floor apartment.  “Like I said: she doesn’t live here! Parents squatted upstairs, finally got kicked out awhile ago.  And her? Found her in front of my door, digging through my trash, eating Apple Jacks like a goddamn racoon.”_

Rey forces herself to inhale, and there’s the distant scent of camomile and another, faded flower.

_The hand is holding hers still, firm and squeezing.  “How about we trade names?” The voice says, soft and rich.  Gradually, a woman emerges from behind the screen of blue and red lights.  When the sirens turn away, her complexion, her smile is as soft and as rich as the voice Rey hears.  “Mine is Maz. And yours?”_

“Rey,” she breathes, focusing.

_Another hand, warm and gentle, smooths down Rey’s hair.  The disarray of it, and of her head, starts to clear. “That’s a pretty name.  Is there a second part? A last name?”_

“Go figure,” RD grunts, staring down at his computer.  He doesn’t notice Rey’s blanched expression. “Don’t have you on the roster yet.  I need your last name.”

_“Ever catch a last name?” The other police officer asks the woman at the door, who can’t be bothered to hide her disgust.  She shakes her head. Rey finds it interesting, how the lights turn black against the lines of her scowl._

“Seeing as it gets worse with each one,” it’s the redhead, snickering.  “She’s definitely the seed of a serial killer.”

_“Honey, a last name?”  The voice beacons, and Rey should feel calm at the sound, but she just can’t remember her last name.  Her breath comes quick and dizzying. Eyes watery and squinting against the light._

_“Jacks-”_

“Rey Jacks,” she blurts out, and it’s a sucker punch to her own gut.   

_The hand is at her knee, calming the rapid tapping of nerves.  The voice speaks again, reaching her through panicked static. “That’s a beautiful name.”_

The blonde is laughing.  “Think she knows how to build bombs?”

“Probably has one on her now.”

“Hux, shut the hell up.”  It’s a guttural, low warning.  An uncomfortably familiar voice.

“Make me.”

Suddenly, the weight of the room shifts.  Someone moves beside her. Ben, fist grinding a metal bar.  He lifts it, and Rey’s shell of immobility snaps off her in an instant.  Her hand shoots out, just barely screeching to a halt before touching him.  The shock of her movement, simple but firm, gives Ben pause. His eyes remain shadowed and incomprehensible, but his lips give the indication that he might be frowning.

The look Rey gives him is nowhere near as impalpable.  It is raw, steady and scathing.

“I don’t need your pity,” she says.  The words are blunt, overcompensating.  “I can handle it on my own.”

“Suit yourself,” Ben mutters.

“Woah, dog finally got a leash,” the redheaded boy, Hux, taunts.  Ben doesn’t even look over, doesn’t flinch, gaze lingering intently on Rey, but her-

“Can it, you over-boiled carrot!” She attacks, a quick and quiet hiss.  Sharp as razors, her glare cuts Hux down with more accuracy and fear than her elementary insult.  The boy, bewildered, retreats back to his partner.

For a reason Rey decidedly ignores, the small, muffled laugh from beside her fills her with more frustration than any of the whispering.

She clears her throat, starts unpacking the kit in front of her to keep her hands busy.  “I know RD said to help me, but I’ve got this. I like working alone, anyway.”

“Me, too.”  

Rey’s hands go idle around a wire, swears she feels a spark.  Her imagination, still pulsing like mad- imagining things, like live wires and Ben’s disappointment.

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

They work alone.  Together.

 

* * *

 

Rey doesn’t see Ben for the rest of the day; it’s only logical, since he’s a senior and she’s… well, she’s getting by.  

She makes good on her promise that she can handle it, all of it.  Even when Geometry leaves her cross-eyed, and her English Lit teacher hands her a different novel than her last school, meaning she has to start all over again, while everyone else is already halfway through- but she nods.  She grins. She says “no problem.” And moves onto the next class, to find herself in the middle of something she hasn’t started. And moves on, again. Head spinning. Constantly orbiting around a dark center of gravity, an anxiety Rey cannot see with the naked eye.

When the last shrill bell rings, Rey finds herself still spinning, circling, until her eyes latch onto something behind glass.  A picture. A dark-haired boy, slightly less tall, slightly less bruised than usual, is on display. Ben, sheltered in a frame, is posed to fight.  The gloves Rey now carries, heavy in her backpack, are light and swift around his fists. His eyes are just as obscured, just as grave and weathered, as they focus on an unseen opponent.  There’s a sheen of sweat softening his features, highlighting a struggle fixed in time.

_Boxing Tournament, Spring 2015._

Three years ago, and still fighting.

Rey shakes the thought and pushes her curiosity until she’s floating into the gymnasium, asking around for information about a boxing club, and if she can join.  She’s met with an array of scratching and shaking heads.

“Club was dismantled three years ago.  Sorry, kid,” is the clearest answer she gets.

So, Rey floats back into orbit; spinning, spinning, spinning, even as she sits on a bench alone.  Waiting to go home.

 

* * *

 

Home doesn’t come to her in sleep that night.

Rey wakes up in a sweat, fighting, her breath ragged and her eyes bloodshot.  She stares into a black void, the bottom of a bunk bed, and tries to orient herself.  She tries to calm herself by listening to the quiet ins and outs of the girls sleeping next to and above her.  Her mind still spinning, her gut queasy and clenching, Rey turns her face into the pillow. She breathes in deeply, hunting down a scent.  All she gets is a nose-full of detergent. And remnants of a dream- a nightmare.

_“Where is home?  Can you point to it for me?”_

_“I’ll come back for you.”_

_“Who are you?  A new orphan, drug baby, or what?”_

The voices in her head multiply, until it’s a deafening roar.  

Before she’s fully conscious of her actions, Rey escapes.  Outside, in the backyard, with gloves on. The only alarm sounding is the cacophony in her head but, when her fist collides with an innocent tree, it starts to quiet.  One hit, one voice. Each muted, word by word, beneath the impact of bone against impenetrable force. The boxing gloves’ padding does little to repress the pain of it.  And perhaps the vulnerability is just a testament of time and use, or maybe it was always there. In the gloves, in her, in-

“Whose face are you picturing?” A voice comes out from the shadows.  It’s clear, calm, boldly stepping into the screaming storm. Rey leaps at the sound of it, and takes a swing in its direction- thinking to vanquish it like all the others.  Except, this one isn’t in her head. It’s coming from the patio steps just beside her.

Ben deftly dodges the lethal blow.  The grimace on his face acknowledges just how close he came to another busted lip.  When the first is still in the process of healing.

“Stop doing that!”  Rey’s voice and arms are raised and agitated.  The demand comes out in a huff, too breathy for her liking.  Yet, Ben does his best to look admonished, eyebrows slowly curving up and mouth slightly parted.  It’s the most expression she’s seen on him all day.

“So demanding,” he says, obviously mocking her.  She scowls.

“So creepy.”

“Right, sorry, I keep forgetting to tie a bell around my neck,” Ben replies flatly.  He steps down, and leans against the patio’s supporting beam, and Rey wonders if the whole cover won’t just topple over.  Minutely, his upper lip lifts, drawing her attention back, and a small, curt laugh slips through. “Or maybe I should bang some pots and pans, just to be thorough.”

Despite knowing it only feeds his ego, Rey rolls her eyes.  She shifts, and makes to take off her gloves. The need to punch something hasn’t quite lifted off her chest, if anything it’s imploding, and the voices are still humming in the background.  But she’s suddenly much more willing to tolerate them in the comfort of her own bed.

Ben spots the change with mild curiosity.  “Leaving so soon?”

“Why do you care?” Rey mutters as she steps up onto the patio, trying to level the field.  Even with the boost, and his slouch, Rey barely meets eye-level. To make up the difference, her chin juts out- defiant, petty.  “Is this your room, too?”

“Mm, no.”  Ben is still ridiculously monotone, but a flare in his eyes sparks movement.  He straightens, squashing Rey’s meager advantage in a second. Her gaze suddenly stoops to the same level as his smirk.  “Last I remember, I let you stay in mine. How did you sleep?”

That proves a much more effective powerplay.  

Rey’s cheeks seethe, and silently, humbly thanks the porch light for being a dud.   

“Fine.  I meant to say thanks, earlier, but,” she mumbles, trails off, and bashfully looks down at the gloves she’s brashly peeling off.  His gloves. Hers. Her blush deepens, infuriatingly so. Her eyes focus on the glass door, but it does nothing to alleviate her embarrassment.  Their silhouettes are echoed there, dark outlines seemingly returned to the kitchen where she’d-

Rey finally notices something off about the door.  It’s still closed. She’d never heard it open.

“How long were you standing there?”  She asks accusingly, and she has no problem looking him in the eyes now.

“Not long,” is his immediate response.  He isn’t lying. Rey gets the sense he never does.  

“I didn’t hear you come outside.”

“You also didn’t notice me right next to you.”  He’s testing how best to amuse her, but the attempt falls flat.  She’s got an old bitterness bubbling in her belly, and it stinks of suspicion.  

“You’re sneaking back in.”  She glances behind him and notices for the first time a crooked plank in the fence.  When she looks back at Ben, her eyes narrow on the familiar jacket. There’s something bone white hiding beneath the black.  “Where were you?”

Ben scoffs.  “Are we on a game show?  Otherwise, I don’t need to answer your questions.  Had I known I would be interrogated, I would have just snuck past you.  I’m realizing now I should have.”

“Yeah, you should have.  Why didn’t you?” The question teeters between indignant and utterly mystified.  Her eyes spar with his, challenging him to falter. He does. A weakness exposes itself, and she pierces it- shallow, but true.  He looks confused by the attack, by his own misstep.

“I was… observing.”

“And?”

Quicker than either of them expect, he patches the wound and shrugs.  “You need a teacher.”

Rey’s hands claw into the gloves’ fabric, her demeanor embittered and near feral at the suggestion.  It reminds her too bluntly of her failures at school.

“Hardly.  I can figure it out on my own.  It’s not like you have a teacher.”

“I did,” he says.  It’s the usual resonant calm.  The hit she dealt him would’ve gone unnoticed, if she simply didn’t look in his eyes.  But she does, and she sees a slit, another cut deeper. Right at the back of his retinas is the after-image of that boy, forever shot in defense against something- just outside the frame, near enough to fear but not close enough to strike down.

Rey’s lips slack around a question she lacks the courage to ask; she’s left to wonder why she’s afraid to ask it at all, and why she wants to despite the fear.

Her hands clench down on the tension.  She flinches. Ben steps up beside her.

“Did you wrap your hands?”  He asks. The relief of his eyes looking down, and anywhere else besides her face, is quickly burnt out by a rising, heated realization that:

“No, I didn’t.”

 _So much for figuring it out on my own_ , she rebukes herself, grimacing.

“Take off your gloves before you fracture something,” he orders.

She complies, eyes torching holes into the gloves even after they’re off.  She slings them over her shoulder, and they smack right into her ribs.

“Here.” Ben’s hand dips into the pocket of his jacket, and comes out with a small bundle of cloth; it’s the answer to her question-  _where have you been, Ben?_

He reaches out to her, both hands open, and closing in to touch hers- Rey’s arms jerk back.  For a heartbeat, she just stares down at the bandaging, spurning the desire to see if she’s inflicted another wound; why should she care?  Why does she?

Ben’s hands linger, floating in the air for another heartbeat and then one of them sinks, back into shadow.  The other slowly stretches out, mindful of Rey’s distance, before dropping the small package onto her palm.

“You’re angry with me.”  There’s no resentment, no confrontation.  He doesn’t even sound confused by the statement.  Which is more than Rey can say for herself.

“No,” she argues impulsively.  “I’m not.”

Ben moves soundlessly, and Rey watches in further confusion as he steps back down onto the grass.  They’re back at eye-level, yet she has no idea what she’s looking at.

“Hit me.”

“ _What_?” Rey makes a face, like she’s been hit herself.  “No! I don’t want to.”

“Oh, you do.”

The tone is pretty cocky for someone gearing for a smackdown.  

“I really don’t.”

“You want to hit someone.”

“No!” She shouts, and immediately regrets it.  Ben is looking awfully pleased with himself. Rey comes to the swift conclusion that she likes it much better when he’s expressionless.  

“I want to hit that tree,” she grumbles, and brushes past him to do just that.  He follows her, reclines against the trunk, her makeshift punching bag. For a second, Rey ponders which one to punch.  Just a second.

Swiftly on that thought’s toes is one that almost pulls out a smile: Ben could easily be mistaken for a tree.  Easily.

“You never told me why you’re here.  What’s your sob story?” He immediately demolishes Rey’s delusion.  He’s very much the annoying boy she  _doesn’t_ want to hit.

Rey focuses on her fumbling attempt to wrap her hands.

The more she focuses, the more she starts to hear those voices again, pressuring and popping in her ears.  They’d gone quiet, or were drowned out by the banter, but now...

“It’s none of your business.”

“Not an orphan, then,” he deducts, and Rey promptly pulls the wrapping right off her wrist.  “Orphans are eager to tell their tale of woe, since their parents are blameless, taken from them too soon.  They’re saints, the whole lot of them. You don’t feel that way. Are your parents in jail?”

“No.”

She tries again, tightens the cloth around throbbing veins.  Ben is quiet, and she swears she can hear her own blood pounding, giving herself away.

“You’re not sure,” he murmurs, his voice dangerously tender.  “They abandoned you.”

The knotted, tangled cluster of cloth smacks against the tree, and falls to the ground.  Her gloves land with a thunk beside her feet.

“Want to hit me now?”  It’s so quiet, she almost misses the slight ripple in its steadiness, a self-depreciating undertow.  

“No.”

“Denial doesn’t help you.”

That finally gets more than a syllable out of her.  “That’s rich!” She snarls, meets his stare head-on.  “If that’s the case, we’ll trade. What’s your sob story?”

He studies Rey, and the deep lines he’s somehow dragged across her skin.  

And then Ben blinks, eyelids sinking and slow to rise- like there’s something heavy and daunting behind them he doesn’t want her to see.  His jaw clenches, and he turns his attention to the fabric on the floor. It pools white at Rey’s feet. It’s a distraction, to buy him time to compose himself.  More so when he kneels down to retrieve his offering. It compresses in his fist, into something stiff and stifled.

“There’s nothing to trade.  You already know my story, don’t you?”

He glances up at her then, deliberately and seeing right through- to the moment Rey caved into impulse and desire, and asked in more ways than one:  _is he like me?_   

Rey grits her teeth, holds his gaze.  “You’re right, I do know it. I know you.”

“And you’re angry.”

She despises that word.  

“I’m not angry,” Rey reiterates stubbornly, but the declaration is starting to fray at the edges.  She heaves. “I’m… confused! How? How could you push away a family that loves you? How could you run away?   _There’s no reason_ .  You left a good home, a mom who worries over you while you go god knows where, to do god knows what in the middle of the night!  Did you know she came to see you yesterday? She was crying,  _waiting_ .  But you weren’t here!  How could you run away from her?  She loves you. And you’re-  _you’re selfish_!”

“You know nothing about me.”  His eyes don’t waver from hers and she marvels at their duplicity. They are at once the black of light's absence and of color's abundance. A confounding immensity that renders it pointless for him to be kneeling.  

Despite how cathartic it was to finally get it all out, everything Rey had bubbling in her gut released - it creates a vacuum.  Ben promptly fills it in with all the  _nothing_ she knows about him.  As if she emptied out all her confusion, just to make room for him and his.

“Want to hit me?”  She asks, dauntless.

Ben’s eyelids hide yet another glimmer of him from her- but she squints, swears she sees him roll his eyes.  He sits down against the tree, resigned. “No.”

“So.  Neither do I,” Rey pushes, hard on someone who’s already on the ground; she’s intent on grinding the point into dust.  As she kicks up the dirt, a cool breeze nips at her nose- and she catches a familiar scent, the one she’d tried to chase deep into the cushion of her pillow.  The aggression eases off her muscles, leaving her soft. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to understand.”

When Ben isn’t intentionally avoiding her gaze, his eyes are so intensely direct, fixed, that she wishes he wouldn’t look at her at all.  Blindly, Rey concludes its intimidation that has her on edge. Except, the more she looks, the more she refuses to back down, the more she realizes that her unease has nothing to do with intimidation, but insight.  

A memory jabs her in the throat, rendering her breathless for a moment as she remembers- moments of awe, of watching boxing matches where the opponents only ever looked into each others’ eyes.  Rey always wondered if those bodies just moved on instinct- or if minds were communicating in secret, through the eyes, in front of spectating masses of strangers. Just two people, a connection in isolation.  Their every move a dance synchronized by a silent, intimate knowledge of one another. Rey had always admired it, wanted to learn it. Now, she’s terrified she is.

“You already do,” Ben says, and Rey fears for one ridiculous moment that he’s read her thoughts.  “Or would if it had been told right. I didn’t run away from my family. They threw me away, like something broken.  But I’m not.”

She is, learning how to read the eyes.  She can see in them how he moves, and why.  He raises a fist, not to break someone else’s bones but to see if his will.  Every fight is a decree. Every bruise a trophy. Every morning a waking testament to how he has not and will not be broken.  But she can see, too, what he can’t: how every move chips away at him. He’s not broken; he’s breaking.

“Can you help wrap my hands?”

This time, Rey doesn’t retreat when he reaches out for her.  Sitting, still he can reach her with ease. When he does, his fingertips are strangely smooth, gentle, for being so broad and imposing.  She expects callouses, but only briefly encounters roughness when his middle finger brushes against her knuckle. There’s a curved indent there, like he’s held on too tightly.  Yet, he barely holds her hand, just a phantom of feeling as he secures her wrist and flattens her palm to ease the cloth between her fingers. Touch and fabric weave in and out, until the sensation is hugging her snugly from all around- her hand fully protected.  She feels a dull pressure as Ben tugs the excess cloth under a fold. She folds her fingers briefly over his, when he tells her to make a fist. And then he’s the one retreating, and she wraps her other hand on her own.

“Looks good,” Ben says, smiling in voice, just enough to break her heart.  He shifts, starting to get up, as something new bubbles up in her chest, swelling-

_“I don’t want to be alone.”  The voice is hers, and someone else’s._

“Teach me,” Rey blurts.  Those two words cripple him, and he’s stuck mid-kneel.  

“I thought you didn’t need a teacher,” he replies, baiting her even as he crouches, awkward and waiting on her reply.  Rey’s lips can’t decide whether to smile or scowl. They fight it out, and end up pressed in a fine line.

“I don’t,” she asserts.  “I want one.”

His eyes do all the smiling now.  “Okay. When do you want to start?”

Rey’s lips do all the smiling for her.  “Now. Now would be great.”

Ben’s gaze is grinning.  Another conveniently cool breeze nudges moonlight over his face to better admire the rare view.  His cheeks don’t look so sullen when presented this way by the night, and his eyes -  _light brown_ , she adjusts in her notes - are young and serene for that moment in the light.   When the air stills, the tree’s shade returns and casts Ben in shadow. But Rey has taken a photo of the boy, and hangs the image of him in her mind where it is safe and hopeful.

Ben looks down and picks up the gloves from where they lie on the grass.  When his attention returns to her, it is as pressing and unyielding as ever.  

“First lesson: why do you want to box?”

Rey’s still smiling, giddy with the promise of learning something new- about him, about boxing.  But it waivers- sensing a trap. “It’s fun.”

“Wrong.”

Definitely a trap.  “It’s not fun.”

“Wrong again.”

Rey frowns.  “You’re annoying.”

“Wr-”  In a red flash, Rey’s fist swan-dives for his head; in the same instant, Ben’s hand seizes and engulfs hers. He imprisons her mid-crime, and looks up to her past raised eyebrows.  His point proven, case closed.

“...Okay,” Rey concedes, grumbling.  “I want to control my anger.”

Ben’s mouth opens, shaping the wrong word.  He pauses, and finally,  _finally_ , smiles with his lips.  Whatever anger Rey thought to control is gone.  

“To focus it,” he says, not knowing what he’s done.  He stands up, his hand still wrapped around her fist.  It lands with a faint thud against his chest, making it slightly impossible to do as he commands: “so, focus.”

“I swear,” she laughs nervously, “if you tell me to hit you…”  She’s only partially joking, to distract herself from a fluttering in her chest.

“Trust me, you won’t.”  It sounds like a challenge.  It’s meant to. Rey focuses just enough to meet his eyes again.

He raises her other hand, positioning them square with her temples, where there’s still a pounding, distant and ebbing the more she stands there by him.  The stance she’s in now, legs planted to the earth and arms braced for any impact, feels right.

“There,” he sighs, admiring the view.  “Now, we can start.”

It’s then that the voices stop.  The spinning, the nausea- it all stops.  For a time, time is not on her mind- and it’s just the two of them, together.  Alone.


End file.
